Are Dress Shoes The Hidden Cause Of Your Heel Pain?

LooSome lucky folks do their 9-5 in a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. Internet workers are famous for transacting global business in a bathrobe and slippers! If your workplace has a semi-formal dress code, however, chances are you are wearing some form of dress shoes five days a week, eight hours a day. Add your commute hours and maybe a fancy party on the weekend and you may be wearing your dress shoes fifty or more hours a week. Got heel pain? Our simple math may just have found your culprit! This article will quickly acquaint you with some of the hidden dangers of dress shoes and offer solutions that will protect the you from the heel pain, heel spurs and Plantar Fasciitis that can be the unwelcome outcome of your formal footwear.

Women’s Dress Shoes And Heel Pain

In a Huffington Post article Dr. Neal M. Blitz states, “I see many high heel-created foot problems that go on to surgery.” Whoa! Surgery? Nobody wants to be sidelined by a time-consuming, costly surgery and weeks of recovery. Nevertheless, footwear designers continue to market high heels to women and women keep lining up to buy them. Podiatrists are in universal agreement that frequent high heel use leads to the countless cases of bunions, corns, and more seriously, Plantar Fasciitis, that they annually treat. While it’s okay to wear high heels for the occasional special event, you should ban them from your daily work wardrobe or you are risking conditions that may require surgery down the road. High heels harm your feet in two significant ways:

They are narrow, crowding your toes, causing irritation and inflammation and preventing natural flexion of the foot.

They tilt your feet at a completely unnatural angle, placing undue pressure on the front of the foot.

The solution for women is to buy work shoes that are flatter and wider. There are plenty of nice flats, or if you want some elevation, choose a platform-type shoe that has an evenly-high sole rather than a slanted one, keeping your foot flat but raising you a bit off the ground. If you’ve already developed heel pain, heel spurs or Plantar Fasciitis, turn your work shoes into treatment shoes with the addition of a Fascia-Bar product like HTP Heel Seats so that you can start healing during those 50+ hours you are spending on the job.

Men’s Dress Shoes And Heel Pain

The shoes gentlemen wear to work tend not to distort the human foot in the extreme ways women’s dress shoes can, but they can create problems of their own. Men’s dress shoes can lead to conditions like bunions, corns, heel spurs and Plantar Fasciitis if they are:

A poor fit. If you didn’t give your shoes a good trial around the floor of the shoe store before you purchased them, you may have discovered that they are a bit too small, tight in the toe box, or too narrow along one or both sides. Any of these flaws can alter the way you walk and put you at risk for inflammation, heel pain and a host of foot ailments.

Worn down. If you’re a busy fellow, you may put off replacing shoes that have worn down on the heel or in the insole for too long. This can also alter the way you walk and result in foot pain and problems.

Poorly made. If your daily work shoes don’t adequately support your heel and arch, you’ll start experiencing discomfort that can range from the heels to the calves and all the way up to your back and neck!

The solution for men is to be sure that your work shoes are in reasonably good condition and that they offer a proper, supportive fit. If you’ve been diagnosed with heel spurs or Plantar Fasciitis, it’s vital to start wearing an orthotic insert on a daily basis that’s been designed specifically to treat these conditions.

A Little More Foot Math

Still not convinced your dress shoe choices may be adding up to the pain in your heels? Let’s take that 50 hour a week footwear figure and multiply it by the 52 weeks of the year. That’s 2,600 annual hours during which you may be subjecting your hard-working feet to bad conditions! Ouch! Your feet support everything you do during a normal day. Standing, walking, working. Treat them to the support they need with proper, well-made shoes, and if they need extra support, meet that need with the right orthotics.